College hoops: Dominican puts scare into Santa Clara

SANTA CLARA - In its first foray into NCAA Division I basketball, the D-II Dominican University basketball team showed an early spark, opening up with a 15-3 run at USF in an eventual 92-66 loss Nov. 16.

Friday, the Penguins did one better, taking a 37-32 advantage into halftime and leading late into the second half, but the end result was the same, as Dominican eventually fell to the Broncos, 69-65.

The Penguins (2-5) led from 15:55 of the first half through the first three minutes of the second, with 28-19 being the biggest advantage. As late as 9:01 of the second half, the Penguins held a one-point lead at 50-49, but a 15-4 run over the next five minutes spurred the Broncos to a win.

"The thing we learned from (the USF) game was that we can play with these guys," Tovani said. "They can be Division-I athletes and be much bigger, but there's something to be said for a team that plays hard all the time and never gives up."

Dominican looked like the superior team through the first half, when Austin Bryan scored 13 of his team-high 16 points and Killian Larson scored eight of his 12. Time and again the Penguins turned sloppy Broncos turnovers into points on the other end, allowing Dominican to carry the five-point lead into intermission.

But the Broncos settled down in the second half and challenged the high-octane Penguins to get into a half court game, which favored the bigger Broncos and got the Penguins into foul trouble. Santa Clara got to the foul line 35 times on the night, making 26, compared to 15-for-19 for Dominican.

After relinquishing their initial lead for the first time around the 17:00 mark of the second half, Dominican hung tough, but Santa Clara went up for good on a Troy Payne putback with inside of 9 minutes remaining. Broncos center Marc Trasolini, who led all players with 22 points and 11 rebounds, then proceeded to go on a personal 8-2 run that wrested control of the game away from Dominican once and for all.

The Penguins got as close as 68-65 on an Alastair Flack 3 with 24.6 seconds to play, but Santa Clara point guard Robert Smith, who scored 16, split a pair of free throws with 7.6 seconds left to ice the win.

As he was after the USF game, Tovani was proud of his players' effort, but said they have to find a way to close out games.

"It's a credit to how hard they play that we hung in there like we did," Tovani said. "But we have to get over hanging in there and find a way to get over the hump. But I have nothing but admiration for them. They played hard. We pushed them to the limit."

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